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Overheat
Execute Program 14-G
Online: Open up the Limit
"How come my trial is-" Ram hesitated a moment, to pick her words more carefully. "Something this simple?"
Kei secured the information on where the Sorceress Trial was found with guild funds in the evening following Nepgear's rise to level 99. A group of exploring players had found it hidden behind a waterfall that required a Sorceress to unfreeze it, in the Pit of Frost zone, in the far south-east. What was surprising was that the zone had only level 20-30 enemies, meaning that very few Sorceresses if any ever came back there.
"I'm glad this trial is fairly straight forward. Even if it is still overwhelming." Vert thrust her spear into the monster in front of her and hit six other monsters as well.
Minutes ago.
"This looks just like Nepgear's." Ram looked around her trial room and was a little disappointed. "I expected like big magic circles! Crystals! A theater stage with crow masked demons watching!"
"I think Windy is rubbing off on Ram a little much." Blanc said with a tint of annoyance. "I am not sure I like how much time they are spending together."
"Jealous that your little sisters are striking out on their own." Vert teased her partner and was immediately punched in the side. "Blanc, that-" Vert tried to tell her that it was pointless but Blanc hit her three more times instead.
As Ram stepped forward, every single square on the floor lit up at the same time, displaying a stylized monster image each. "Uh-oh." Ram looked back and sure enough, the group was standing on twelve different squares. And those 12 went off just seconds later, opening three gates, to the left, right and at the back of the room as viewed from the entrance.
"Blanc, Nepgear, you're up." Vert smiled. "Breath of the Azure Wyrm!" Vert buffed the party with increased damage, 0.3% for each monster in the immediate vicinity.
Grouping together on the entrance, Blanc used Howl of Honor to attract the monsters but there were just far too many. The entire room was a gigantic swamp of monsters within thirty seconds. "Nepgear!" Blanc didn't need to say anything more.
"March of the Crusaders!" Nepgear held up her sword which started to shine with holy light before she rammed it into the ground, creating a large blue dome above the party, giving every single party member the same defense rating as Nepgear but immobilizing the Paladin itself.
"There is a lot and then there is this!" Ram kept casting and the monsters kept dying quickly but there just wasn't an end in sight.
"Stay strong, Ram." Windy called out, monsters slowly managing to push her away from the group, something that was happening to a few other members as well. Thankfully, with Nepgear's skill, there was not much of a threat from the monsters.
"Such numbers!" Zelena equipped the Behemoth Claws that she had purchased earlier, engaging in hand to hand combat, dealing high damage with every attack.
"The Sorceress is made to keep legions at bay but this is ridiculous!" Chika spread her heals out and tried to keep her buffs on those who had the lowest amount of HP. No tank in existence could have kept all those monsters occupied. A group of Knight might be able to form a ring around a Sorceress but that was an absolutely ridiculous way to clear the quest.
"They better not be infinite or something stupid like that." Peashy cursed, jumped shot a shrapnel cannonball into the horde. Items were piling up on the floor.
"I cannot cast like this!" Mina was trying to get a Solar Eruption going but even a very high level Arcanist could only take 20 hits before their cast was aborted.
"Mina, since I cannot move, if you would like, you could climb on top of me." Nepgear offered and it made several party members cringe. "I swear I have only pure intentions!"
"I don't think anyone was worried about that, Nepgear." Blanc said as she was pushed back. The damage was completely irrelevant, ten, maybe fifteen per hit, which she negated with just her natural recovery.
Natal and Kei were rendered useless, much like Mina. "If only we could clear enough space to set up a perimeter for Mina, Kei and Natal! With Nepgear's skill, we can just use all our non-casting members as shields."
"What about me?! I cast too!" Ram complained and unleashed another Nexus Firestorm in the midst of the horde.
"Your casts cannot be canceled!" Chika shouted. She saw Peashy get driven away from the group. About to call out to her, Chika stopped. There was still an elephant in the room concerning Peashy and herself.
"Oh." Peashy noticed that she had been dragged onto another platform that now turned off and a new bred of monster joined the fray. "My bad."
"It's not like this is going to make it any harder." Blanc cursed and noticed something, or something, step on her head. "Hey!"
"Here we go~!" Plutia suddenly shouted and dropped dead in mid-air. She needed to be out of attacking range to summon. In a moment of enlightenment, Plutia figured that up there were no monsters. Blanny looks so~ sturdy, and she's not that~ high, I can so~, so~ do this!
Calling a summon she had leveled all the way to level 99, Plutia smirked. "Biribiribiri~." She copied Dengekiko. In the air, a giant golden bird with three formless heads and four wings appeared. "Quezacotl, get them~."
Causing a massive surge of lightning inside the closed room, the monsters horde was virtually pulverized for a second but more arrived through the gates immediately.
"Formation!" Vert shouted. Vert, Famitsu, Blanc, Nepgear, who was still immobilized, Peashy, Uni, Denko, Windy, Rom, Chika, Zelena and Ram formed a ring around Mina, Kei and Natal, who all began work immediately.
Mina immediately starting casting Solar Eruption which she could cast at twice the normal speed due to it being a skill she had learned below level 75. Natal started layering traps and Kei starting installing a gadget.
Plutia's summon incinerated the second way and then flew across the room, unleashing smaller bursts of electricity.
"How many do you think we have killed by now?" Blanc asked Vert, the two side by side, enduring endless attacks that barely scratched them.
"Around 3000." Peashy said nonchalantly and kept firing into the crowd, each shell killing dozens at a time. "It isn't worth it for these small fry to use party buffs but I am basically maxed out on kill count bonus effect for everything that is spawning."
"Vert, please remember that if no one takes damage for than 15 seconds or someone dies, my skill will disable." Nepgear didn't feel very useful just being stationary but she thought that this was how Kei, Plutia and Zelena had to feel a lot of the time.
"Does it keep going infinitely other than that?" Blanc wondered and looked to the side while a group of dog looking enemies was scratching her armor.
"No, it actually runs for 5 seconds for every point in vitality I have. It will run for roughly 9 minutes total." Unlike most regular skills, level 99 skills required the player to log out or in this case, sleep, before they could be used again."
"That might as well be infinite then." Blanc was impressed. "You got three skills, right? What were the other ones?" Blanc didn't really have anything to do. Using Howl of Honor didn't do much if the entire floor was covered in monsters since monsters could not pass through each other.
Mina finished casting right then and it cleared most of the room, leaving only fire immune monsters behind. "If this is an endurance test, please activate as many symbols as you can after Mina clears the room again." Kei asked the party. "There will be fireworks after."
"You heard her." Vert didn't see any reason to question Kei's judgment. The only real danger was Nepgear's buff running out and everyone dying. They would have to postpone the next try until tomorrow unless they came up with another strategy.
Enduring the onslaught a little longer, Mina finished her next spell. "Cosmic Breath of Malboros!" A massive poison cloud covered the area and nearly instantly killed everything that moved except the party.
Not waiting for anyone to tell her to go, Ram, Windy and Peashy were the first to run ahead and also the first to be outrun by Zelena and Vert, who were the tallest and had high agility attributes as well. Activating almost all the emblems, missing only eight at the far corners in the back, Kei activated her gadget. "H.D.C.S. Molecular Flame Gate: Engage." Kei hit the start button and the gadget shot out countless white spheres that latched onto spawning enemies, burned them up and went on to the next enemy. The burning process emitted rainbow colored sparks all over the place which resembled Fireworks in a way.
"I never saw this one before. What does it do?" Vert inquired of her guild member.
"It launches 999 spheres that hit an enemy, burn them with my level times 100 damage and then either repeat the process or if the enemy dies, bounce up to five times to new enemies. So if every sphere kills an enemy, this will kill about 5,000 monsters. Honestly, it isn't useful in dungeons or even during boss fights because 10,000 damage is nothing to write home about and one enemy can only be hit by one sphere at a time." Kei explained at length, watching the spheres literally hover around the spawn points, creating an endless amount of fireworks as new monsters kept spawning.
"If I had known the trial worked like this, I would have used it right away. The parts are rare but not that rare. Should I set up a second one? I can make one more." Kei would rather not as each gadget came at roughly 200,000 credits. "In the meantime we should pick up everything that hasn't despawned."
Nepgear's skill deactivated because the 15 second period of no damage party wide. "If there are more after this, we might have a problem."
"Don't worry." Dengekiko puffed up her modest chest. "Now that I know where they come from and that they are all element based, and now that the space is unoccupied, I can set hazards to take care of them."
"Your time to shine, Denko." Famitsu smiled when Dengekiko glared at her for using that name. She didn't like it and was trying to get people to stop using it. Her in-game name didn't say Denko either.
"There is way too much stuff for us to carry." Peashy looted as quickly as she could, and so did several of the others, but things still kept despawning rapidly because it had been on the ground for too long.
"I am full!" Ram shouted and looked at the stacks and stacks of items in her inventory. "Getting loot is nice but it's too much!"
"I am going to get encumbered status if I pick up even a single thing." Uni said.
Vert, one of the characters with the highest strength attribute, was looting as hard as she could herself and she was still looting when Kei whistled.
"The Spheres are about to run out." Kei retreated to the far back of the room. "We should use the wall as half of a circle so we can make do with only the more sturdy members." Kei saw no problem taking over the strategic aspect while Vert and Zelena were busy picking up valuable items.
Rom and Chika had sat down after filling up their inventories. Plutia was with them as well and she had a really low weight limit, even compared to other mage classes. "Should I summon something~?"
"Save it in case there is a boss at the end." Vert rejected her offer. "Why is it that you died earlier, Plutia? Aren't you able to withstand one summoning now?"
"Eh~, it's a choice~ and I was so~, so~ bored!" Plutia didn't like endurance tests like these.
Vert, Zelena, Blanc, Nepgear, Windy and Peashy formed a half circle while everyone else hid behind them. Dengekiko and Natal were still running around, creating hazards and long lasting traps, and returned just as the spheres vanished and monsters kept pouring into the room endlessly, falling into toxic swamps, lava pits, sub zero water, got stuck in spike traps, spear traps and pitfalls that slowly filled with acid. Not much got through the hazards and traps and what got through was attracted by Blanc and Nepgear while Uni, Peashy and Ram took care of the stragglers.
"You can probably do this with just Six sorceresses if you take breaks in-between activating the emblems." Uni figured. "Keep three casting blizzard and three casting vermillion."
"Dummy, there are monsters immune to both and there are plenty of monsters immune to just freeze and paralyze." Ram shook her head. "Leave the Sorceress business to the pros."
"Ram, that is no way to address the leader of a nation or a friend." Zelena scolded her candidate.
Ram started to pout and focused on just casting.
"Nepgear, you never explained your other skills." Blanc that back up since things had become a little awkward now.
"Outside of March of the Crusaders, there are two other skills, Immortal, and Paragon of Devotion." Nepgear used Holy Cross to attract a set of reptile enemies and continued her explanation. "The first makes it so that nothing can kill me for 1 minute, it will only reduce my HP to 1. But after that minute, I automatically die and cannot be revived, I have to respawn."
"That will be very useful for the Kings." Vert said, killing a few stragglers that escape the grasp of the tanks.
"Paragon of Devotion is a super charged version of Dying for your Sins. It transfers the damage of the entire party to me and reduces it by 90%. It also transfers all debuff effects to just me. But for each 10 seconds it is active, it uses up 10% of my max MP. So after 20 seconds, it uses 20% of my MP, at 30 seconds, 30% and so on. I can use all three skills together." Nepgear finished her explanation.
"Is this going to keep going much longer?" Ram was getting tired. "I mean, I wanna be level 99 and get all my super cool skills but this is really super exhausting."
"Hang in there, Ram." Rom tried to encourage her sister but she was getting tired as well.
"How many panels are there?" Mina asked and hit the room with another spell. The loot was piling up in front of Kei now, who was using another loot collecting gadget. They were going to have to warp her back home because while one could carry infinite amounts of items, once they went over 100%, skills became disabled, movement speed was reduced to 5% and jumping was disabled as well.
Vert quickly counted the rows and columns and multiplied. "96 panels." Vert replied. "I hope there are not 1000 enemies per panel." They would be there for days.
And just then, one of the stragglers dropped dead in the middle of the room. A split second later, no more monsters came through the gates and all of the traps and hazards were erased. "I lost track but my best guess is that this trial is beating 10,000 monsters and there's something like 500 per panel. So you gotta beat like 20% of the room."
"18% if your math is accurate." Kei corrected Peashy who just shrugged and grabbed a lollipop from her pocket. "I do hope this was the end. I am at more than 12,000% capacity of my weight limit." Kei was glad that the game had a system of infinitely stacking items. Or if there was a cap, it was higher than 999.
"So, where is my level up?" Ram looked at the ground to check for skill emblems but there was nothing there. "What the heck!"
"Ram." Chika gave her a reminder to mind her language.
"Ram, above you." Rom had sat down and looked up from being mentally exhausted.
"What the-" Ram stopped herself. "Did they mess up the location?" Looking up, Ram saw numerous emblems on the ceiling. Finding the emblem for fireball, Ram cast it and send it flying, diagonally, up against the emblem, which did nothing. "It's broken! I can't believe it! Piece of Junk!" Ram was so upset that she kicked the ground.
Windy was there to save the day, having figured out what Ram was doing wrong. Holding Ram by her shoulders from behind, Windy shoved Ram, who just went ahead with the direction Windy was trying to push her since players couldn't physically move each other. "Cast it again." Windy smiled.
"I can't aim from here." The emblem was right above her and fireball emerged from a magic circle at roughly the height of her chest, which made it impossible to aim. Seeing Windy's convinced face, Ram cast the spell anyway and just fired at the wall up ahead.
Ram looked up when she heard a clicking sound. "No way! It lit up!" Looking to Windy, Ram smiled as wide as she could.
"If they kiss I am going to shove that spear of yours somewhere weird." Blanc grumbled to Vert. But her worries were unfounded.
Windy and Ram put their hands in the air and did a double high-five, shouting Yay as loud as they could. "You are clever and I am smart. Together, we are the Invincible Pranksters!" Windy smirked and Ram smirked back.
Just a minute later, Ram activated her tenth emblem and the exact same sequence as with Nepgear took place, granting Ram a golden aura and two new skills. "Boo, I only get two? Nepgear got three!" Ram complained before even looking at the skills.
Warped outside, the group just sat around, resting their minds. It was one thing to spends a long time grinding normally as it didn't require a lot of attention but being put in a situation like the Sorceress trial was incredibly tiring.
"Ram, what do your new skills do? Are they cool?" Rom was asking her younger sister, Natal in tow.
"Lemme see… oh, this sounds super awesome. Wrath of the Cosmos, it says. It causes neutral damage bypassing magic defense on everything in a cone in front of me. What was a cone again?"
Windy formed her hands like a cone. "Like this."
"Oh, that is pretty neat then. Would be better as a zone though." Ram read the rest of the description. "Wowzers! It has 10 minutes cooldown but cooldown is reduced by 30 seconds for every enemy I hit with it!"
"Then you can cast it lots and lots if there's a bunch of dummy monsters." Rom smiled. "Less healing for me!"
"What is the other one?" Windy was curious just how absurdly broken Ram had become.
"Oh, bummer, it's a passive." Ram was disappointed until she saw the description. "Wowzers again!" Ram read the entire description and her grin got wider and wider until her sisters were worried the upper half of her head might pop off.
"The Wizard." Ram said proudly. "I am fully invincible to magic attacks and my damage is increased by 50% for each 10% of my max MP I have when casting." Ram giggled to herself. "So casting at full power is-" Ram looked to Windy for help.
"Quintuple damage at full MP." Windy finished for her sister. "That is really powerful. And that is a passive skill?" Windy figured that the Sorceress needed something like that to compete with the other classes in endgame where it was mostly singular tough enemies.
"It does say I can only use Strong or above MP potions now." Ram smirked. "But only a cheap dummy would use stuff weaker than that!"
"Famitsu can you open a warp home?" Kei asked, moving at turtle speed towards the Sage.
"Sure." Famitsu smiled and wondered just how much money Kei was going to make off this.
=== OVERHEAT ===
Neptune leaving had left a much greater hole in the hearts of Makers than anticipated. To just live, they had plenty of money. But motivation to do anything was at an unprecedented low. Ryuka was sprawled out on the crimson colored sofa in the living room, she at one end with Moru and Ain at the other.
"Maybe this was the wrong decision." Marvel looked down at the room. Sitting on one of the large steel beams that connected the machinery parts of the clock tower, she shared a drink with Lid, who was sitting across her, leaned against a great gear that moved only once an hour. The gears itself were made of some kind of material that looked and smelled like copper but that might have simply been the game giving off that information separately.
The smell of copper and iron was relieving and helped settle Lid's need to smoke. She was within arm's length of Marvel and slightly adjacent to the ninja. Their legs would have been able to be side by side if they were to stretch. Reaching for the large green bottle in Marvel's hand, Lid took off the cap and filled her mouth with the fiercely strong drink. Burping as she lowered her arm, Lid let out one of thousands of sighs that filled the living room of the clock tower now and the way it looked, would continue to do so for some time.
"They're all questioning whether it was the right thing to do. It was fucking scary to think about Celestia breathing down our neck with hatred, but so far nothing has happened. Either Celestia doesn't care, or they don't know." Lid looked to Marvel. She was officially the co-leader of the guild after everything that had transpired and she felt the burden of being responsible for banning Neptune from the guild.
"Do you think anyone is going to leave?" Marvel wondered about that ever since that moment she had banned Neptune. It was a dreadful thought to carry around all day.
"I don't know. I want to say no, and I at least think none of my girls are leaving no matter what, but I can't be sure." Lid became quiet for a moment, looking to the side, where the countless gears of the clock tower were slowly moving about their day, as if nothing had happened. "I saw Wac cry." Lid didn't look back at Marvel and continued to have her eyes glued on the rotating copper smelling gears. "Wac is one of our oldest members. She might even be the oldest, older than me even. But in all those years, I never saw her cry. Not once. I thought I understood how much everyone would be hurting but after seeing that, I don't think I ever will. Especially for some of the girls like Moru."
"Neptune had a way to attach herself to your heart and you somehow welcomed it. She could be irritating, but she really lightened up the place. But it may be weird for me to say that since I only knew her for a couple of weeks."
"That was plenty for Nep to become something natural in your life." Lid blew some air in the direction of the gears, imitating the motion of exhaling smoke. "I have to admit as much as she annoyed me at first, she was funny. There aren't many people that can make me laugh and she was one of them. She was so easy to make happy, too. Some pudding and she would gladly do you a favor." Lid noticed Sango from the corner of her eye, just returning to the living room from down below.
"Is Moru still out looking for her?" Marvel asked and opened up her menu, navigating to the guild members and their status. A long list of portraits, names, levels, class name and status. "She must have stopped. She is listed as idle."
"Hypothetically… can you remove a ban?" Lid wondered about that. It was probably too late to fix things now, but if it turned out that they had committed a terrible error, she wanted a way to at least put a big band-aid on it.
"I think inviting her back in would just create the fear in her that we might cast her out again the moment things get hair. I lost a comrade once because I couldn't believe in them after they had betrayed me once before and I had forgiven them for it." Marvel carried those memories of the bloodier days with her day and night.
Taking the bottle back from Lid, Marvel thought about wiping the mouth of the bottle on her skirt but then didn't. She really didn't care that much about indirect kisses and other teenage fancies like that. The alcohol didn't do anything to dull her mind but it at least dulled the loss somewhat.
"It feels like someone reached into your chest, grabbed tight and ripped out something precious, leaving you alive on purpose to see what you lost and think about it every day." Lid crossed her arms and let her legs hang off the beam she sat on. "I didn't even know her for that long and it still feels like I abandoned one of my family."
"The Black Devotion is like family to you then?" Marvel had assumed as much but hadn't heard Lid actually say it.
"Not just like. We're of course not related by blood. That would be some family alright. But we are still family. We share a home. We share each others troubles, needs and victories. We praise and scold, although Jene and I do most of the scolding, and we stick together despite our differences."
"I sense that you and Capcom are not quite like that. Tekken, too."
"They joined up for a job we got from the Queen of the Night that never went anywhere because we were all brainwashed. I didn't see any reason to kick them out. Cap is reliable and Tekken gives Sango a much needed punching bag." Lid looked down into the room below again and saw Sango just sit in one of the small enclaves in the walls, drinking by herself. Looks like even our resident sadist has a heart.
LeeFi walked into the room right then, scanning the three sofas, four armchairs, all of the same brown coloration, and the far corners of the living room for something or someone. Lid could tell she was pulling up a menu and figured that she had to be looking for her. "LeeFi!" Lid shouted. "Up.!"
The martial artist bend backwards, looking straight up and spotted both her leaders. Most of the girls couldn't get all the way up there, it was more than four meters between the lowest beam and the ground, but LeeFi had extraordinary jumping power. Using the nearby brick wall as a stepping stone, performing a wall kick, she just barely reached high enough to land safely on the lowest beam.
"I could have come down, you know?" Lid managed a chuckle but LeeFi just shook her head.
"This is fine. I can use some moving about." LeeFi sat on a beam about 30 centimeters lower than Lid's and about a meter away horizontally. "Celestia has two level 99 characters now. Their Paladin and their Sorceress. They also recruited the Cannoneer Peashy. But the big news is about The Black Lands." LeeFi eyed the green bottle for a moment, contemplating to ask for a mouthful. "There are rumors that they are are planning to impeach the Queen of the Night because she hasn't been doing her job as guild master."
"You can impeach a guild leader?" Marvel was so surprised that she dropped the bottle but reacted quick enough with her feet to kick it up in the air and catch it. A circus act like that was nothing for a full fledged ninja.
"Yes." LeeFi nodded. "But I had to ask enough to know how. You know how we can all use the kick command but it doesn't do anything? If at least 60% of the guild use it on the leader, the leader is demoted to normal member and the first to use the kick command within the last 24 hours becomes leader. There is no cooldown to this. Apparently one guild had so many disagreements they went through 9 leaders before they settled on one with just barely enough members not impeaching." LeeFi eyed the bottle again and all this talk about kicking made fresh wounds hurt even more. "Does that work?`Dousing with alcohol?"
Marvel and Lid answered as one. "No." It wasn't the complete truth. It helped while one was drinking but things always got worse after the buzz wore off.
"Good job out there. I know you're probably not very motivated." Marvel was glad that at least some resemblance of functionality was left, even in times like these.
"It keeps me busy. I would try to get a party going, so everyone can get their mind off Nep, but it's different from doing a job." LeeFi's gaze drifted to the room below and she let the pain show on her face for just a little while. "It hurt when she left, when we made her leave, but it hurts just as much to be here without her. She was the newest member of our family and we got rid of her because she was a danger to the rest of us."
"I would have opposed it all the way if our enemy wasn't the goddesses themselves, the nations themselves. Assassins. Bandits. Psychopaths. We could even take down some of the goddesses if we tried hard enough, I'm sure, but would that make Nep happy? Us happy?" Lid's eye couldn't discern just how much LeeFi was hurting and how much she was showing. "This was hard but we had to do it. We can't start a war against the entire world on our own."
That isn't what she was saying earlier. But I guess it is natural for her to play tough in front of her kids. If the parent doubts their decision, the kids will doubt it so much more. And that will just make everyone even more unhappy.
"It would be so much easier to swallow if we knew Nep was doing okay." LeeFi slowly exhaled through her nose, her gaze dropping to her knees. She acted strong but was one of those that were suffering the most.
"When IF gets back, ask her if she found anything. I couldn't let Nep stay with us, but I wanted to at least know what she is up to now. I did tell her that I'll send her some supplies." Marvel glanced towards Lid's general direction, checking for some kind of protest of her saying this. "I sent IF to follow her."
"Why didn't you tell anyone?" LeeFi couldn't even pretend she wasn't upset about this and she glared at both Marvel and Lid.
"All of you would have tried to do the same if I told you I'd okay something like that. Don't, please. If it's just one person watching from the distance to tell us how she is doing, it won't be linked back to our guild." Explaining herself despite knowing it wouldn't really change a thing, Marvel didn't want to lie to LeeFi's face when she asked her directly.
"LeeFi, don't give the guild leader more trouble than she has. I'm sure IF will tell everyone all they want to hear." Lid took the side of her leader in this matter.
"How long are you going to keep this stalking thing going?" LeeFi called it what it really was.
"For a little while. Just to see to it that Nep gets back on her feet." And we do, too.
"And we spent enough time moping around for now." Snatching the bottle back from Marvel, Lid put it to her lips and emptied all that remained into her stomach. Coughing a little and shaking her head from the strong taste of alcohol, Lid jumped off the beam, grabbed LeeFi by her arm and landed safely and sound on the floor. A 4 meter drop was nothing much for her battle hardened body.
"Alright, listen up!" Lid shouted loud enough to make even those that sought to be depressed in solitude, in their rooms, to peek out and listen. "We're all hurting because Nep is gone but so what? She isn't dead. She is gone, for now. We kicked her out because keeping her with us might start another bloody war and we'd be the only collateral damage. But who knows, we might find a way to turn things around once we get out of here. But we're 100% not going to get anything done by moping around."
"That would have sounded very inspirational if you weren't slurring your words and piss drunk, boss." Sango complained and rolled her eyes. "So what, we go out, kick monster ass and live it up?"
"Yes. And for all the profit we make, we can sent a part to Nep. You can't talk to her, but since I'm so piss drunk, a letter or so hidden with the item you're sending her might totally slap my drunk ass eye." Lid smirked as she said this, seeing the spirits lift all across the room. "We were all under pressure and made a decision but thinking shit over, it's not like we can't go full class armor and happen to frequent the same joints as a certain pudding head."
"Your motivational speeches suck ass!" Ryuka shouted all the way from the back of the bedrooms. "And someone take the alcohol from her already before she pukes all over the damn floor, I got cleaning duty!"
"Respect. None." Wac sad, looking over the back of the sofa she was on. "Motivation. Not Zero." She managed her usual mysterious smile.
"You would be such a terrible leader if we were a regular unit of regular people." Jene appeared from within her room, walked up to Lid and took the bottle from her, simultaneously freeing the still dazed LeeFi. "You smell like a liquor store, boss. Take a shower." Oddly enough, smells were still a thing even if food and drink seemed to just dissipate inside the players.
"Reason for following, unknown." Wac poured oil on the fire.
"Shut your traps you bunch of ingrates!" Lid stomped on the floor, shouting as loud as she could. Not three seconds later, Capcom's fist was forming a deep and intimate connection with Lid's cheek.
"Stop shouting you absolutely mad woman!" Capcom barked back and was immediately hit in the face by Lid, who tanked the attack like it was nothing. Beating on each other without any effect, both of them were suddenly sent flying to the floor as they punched each other. "What the hell?"
"Oh, that is what that does." Marvel came jumping down and grinned wide. "Be careful now, I might have accidentally activated FFF mode." Marvel's smirk was the prophet of bad news to come. "Apparently it means Full. Friendly. Fire.. But before we start snuffing each other out to test who is the strongest without any big penalties, we are going to party. All 22 of us. We are going hunting. Players. Bosses. Souls. Everything."
"Aren't we miss little sunshine now." Sango mocked her guild leader and walked all the way up to Marvel, seizing her up. "Most of just want to deal with our shit. I am not joining any damn party. Unless of course you're convincing me by letting me pound on you for a while."
"Naughty. Sexual innuendo." The girls couldn't make out where exactly Wac was looking but Sango felt she was being stared at nonetheless.
"Anyone who joins the party gets free drinks at Hohenheim tonight. The one who looks like she's the one most into actually playing gets to send Nep the first care package." Marvel made clever use of monopolizing the information IF was going to have. LeeFi could ask but she would only get a general response on how Nep was doing.
=== OVERHEAT ===
"Do we kill them?" Blanc stared at a group of over twenty players that stared back at her. "I don't really feel like starting a big PVP skirmish right now though."
"I will talk to their leader." Vert went up ahead alone. The zone was a wasteland with dead trees everywhere and many undead monsters, ranging from level 40 to 50, a zone in northern Lastation. The scorched ground and the clouded skies were home to Mawcula, an undead sand worm that was truly gigantic and whose defining feature was sucking blood. The teeth sold for a pretty credit but it didn't drop much else in the way of loot. "I'd like to talk to your leader." Vert didn't think she needed to identify herself. Everyone knew that Celestia's Dragoon was their guild master.
An Inquisitor stepped forward and seeing that, Blanc suddenly felt irritated. Not because of the class or because the Inquisitor didn't bother showing any respect to Vert but because there was a lot of bouncing on both sides as they seized each other up and walked away to more neutral grounds. Even though she was in the same ballpark on size now, it still somehow ticked her off.
"I assume you're not interested in just killing us and taking the spot." Marvel felt just a little bit nervous. Celestia could easily stomp them on the spot and there was not much they could do against it. It was open PVP in zones with a boss.
"Which other bosses have you timed and which are you planning to go to?" We are merely testing out Ram's new skills and hoping for Soul Jars for a Skunking soul. I don't think I want to antagonize this guild for just that.
"We have Xuxuxu and The White Hat." And I am surprised we got even that. You girls are just hoarding everything.
"Nothing of great interest then." Vert pretended to think hard about something when in fact she was just admiring the girl's boobs. They do look as big as mine… no, could they be bigger? She is shorter than me, so that must be why they look bigger. I cannot imagine there being a human with greater assets than mine.
"Anything else?" Marvel asked after 30 seconds were up.
"I have an offer for you. In exchange for giving you the times of the bosses we have killed and timed, as well as leaving you alone today, you will open any Soul Jars you find. Our Machinist is a collector and is looking for a Skunking soul. If you happen to obtain one, you will unconditionally hand it over to us." Vert tried her best intimidating smile and it seemed to have a little bit of an effect. "You are not someone who will go back on their word, isn't that right?"
All that fixation for a soul? And it's just from a soul jar, so it's a normal monster too. I guess Celestia people are as eccentric as they say they are. "One additional caveat. I'd like for Celestia to not attack our territory in the Sharewars two days from now."
"That is acceptable." Vert had no plans to change territories anyway, not for a long time. "You would not happen to have a Mindflayer, Magic Archer, Manipulator or Dark Knight for sale, perhaps?"
For sale? Marvel frowned at that question. "We're a guild that values each other like family. We do not sell members."
"A pity. Some of the girls are extremely cute." Vert smiled and then visibly shivered and shook as a chill went down her spine. "I will invite you for a drink should opportunity present itself if you do not lose a word of what we discussed to anyone."
"Is this related to that Knight in your guild staring holes into me?" Marvel had ignored it until now but it was almost like that Knight's eyes were burning.
"Simply a gesture of good will." Vert's awkward smile didn't sell her story but Marvel pretended it did anyway. "Good day to you."
"See you around." I guess goddesses have their own issues. From what I heard and know, that had to be Green Heart, from Lowee. Vert, was it? So I suppose the Knight has to be White Heart, also from Lowee, then. Marvel wasn't comfortable being that close to a lot of goddesses right the day after she kicked out Neptune. If they hadn't kicked her and run into the group, things might have taken a very bad turn.
"What did you two talk about?" Lid was not too eager to go up against Celestia, especially with two people having golden auras. Damn. I want one of those.
"They're going to leave us in peace." Marvel grabbed Sango and threw her right back to the back of the party when she walked past Marvel, no doubt about to start casting. Friendly fire was a guild setting rather than a location setting.
"I hate this bullshit mode. I am going to cast your head off, fill the hole with ants and put your head back on for the biggest, most impossible to scratch itch in the history of torture." Sango was not nearly as far off her game as the others had expected.
"You shouldn't fight..." Rain stepped in and people really got quiet quickly when Rain spoke up. For as quiet as she was when at peace, once set off, she was too much to handle for almost everyone. It was so much worse now because she was the only Bishop.
"Boss, the… boss spawned." Estelle pointed towards sand clouds in the distance, indicating the presence of a really large monster. "Can we call them something other than boss? It's so confusing to have a good and bad boss. Or bosses." Estelle's brain was starting to hurt. She was not dumb but also by far not the brightest in the guild or the Black Devotion.
"How about MVP?" Moru suggested and was met with only confusion, which displeased her a little. "It's based on an old online game where after a boss was killed, the player who contributed the most to taking it down was labeled the MVP, the most valuable player, and given a small extra. It eventually caught on to call the bosses MVPs themselves and even label boss hunting as MVPing."
"How old are we talking about?" CC had never heard of a game like that. "Was I even born yet when that was being played?"
"For someone who loves those pretend-online games, you really know nothing about real online games."Resta mocked CC and put on a haughty attitude. "You see, this is one of the cult classics of the MMO scene, and-"
"Lagunalock Online." Wac stole thunder, lightning and glory all in one go. "Talking, excessive. MVP, hunt."
"You old hag! I was just getting to the damn name! And how dare you interrupt me!" Resta foamed at the mouth and swore to herself to give Wac not a single heal ever again.
"Can you two hate-flirt later?" Aizen interrupted them. "The beast is going to spot us soon." She never spoke much during partying but she was quite talkative outside actively playing the game. She had taken a liking to Cave, which had caught a lot of friction with Nisa. Nothing violent, but Nisa had threatened to punch her into next week if she didn't back off.
"Take your positions. Ponytail Falcom, Tekken, you go and tank. Other Falcom, Nisa, Estelle, take care of the ads. We still don't have a Sorceress so CC, Cave and Marvel, you take the ads off the off-tanks." Lid possessed natural leadership qualities, even in a MMO, which made everyone listen to her. So far, they had an astonishingly low wipe ratio.
In another zone, Ram was laughing maniacally as she cast Wrath of the Cosmos on a group of unsuspecting players about to be mauled by an out of control pull from their tank. They died so quickly that they didn't understand what hit them at all until they heard Ram laughing.
"You are turning into a villain, Ram." Windy smirked. "A pity that the Sorceress does not have a black cloak as their armor."
"Doing evil in the name of good!" Ram proclaimed.
"Punishing infidels with divine fury!" Windy continued.
"Destroy the Infidels!" Ram glanced at Windy before she whispered to her without looking. "What does Infidel mean?"
"People that don't believe in us." Windy whispered back. Ram was not quite as clever as she would have liked in a prankster partner, but she was always motivated.
"The Evil Sorceress and the Evil Inquisitor. Zelena and Blanc will have to defend their thrones from them when they rise to power." Dengekiko observed with a snarly comment. "That would make such a scoop. I need to secure an exclusive for when the inevitable coup happens."
"There won't be a coup." Famitsu commented, exhausted. She hadn't slept because Dengekiko kept her up all night. She was sore too. My butt hurts. And my head too.
"You never know. Just listen to that evil maniacal laugh." Dengekiko pointed at Ram who was now providing cover fire, or cover ice, for Windy, who was taking apart a second group of adventurer's down below.
"Denko, about last night-" Famitsu started out, in earshot of everyone else.
Dengekiko reacted with panic and immediately covered up Famitsu's mouth. "Not here!" A harsh and aggressive whisper, Dengekiko didn't want everyone to know about it, not just yet.
"For how much of a fuss you are making, you were pretty quiet last night." Chika's comment startled Dengekiko. "It's not really any of my business if you two are hooking up but you shouldn't act like the rest of us are blind."
Is… that what this looked like? Dengekiko couldn't decide if this was for the better or worse. For the moment, she decided to just roll with it. Pulling Famitsu a little to the side, Dengekiko was relieved when nobody really paid too much attention. More and more players were rolling into the zone now as word had gotten out that Celestia was hanging around. Everyone wanted to see the golden aura.
"Those two are a couple now?" Zelena asked her Oracle while slowly casting her last pre-99 skill, Cross of the Animals, allowing her to summon mounts directly from the ranch. It took two minutes to cast.
"Maybe. Could be they just ended up in bed together." Chika wouldn't have been surprised if something like that happened. Standing quietly next to her love, Chika slowly got closer and closer until she could lean against the beast master. The largely fur themed armor of beast masters was fairly comfortable both to be worn and to be touched. Especially the tiger skin of the torso armor.
Zelena on the other hand was uncomfortable with how it didn't really provide any support for her breasts whatsoever. Just walking caused them to bounce significantly, running would have been outright painful if pain had been included in the game sensations. Shaped like a corset, the armor was disliked by some players for being too high on fan service. This however, Zelena didn't mind at all.
Zelena switched to guild chat. "The gate has opened." It was just her way of saying she had real time warp access to the ranch. She kept quite a number of mounts there, for transportation only and some for battle. She was looking very much forward to reaching level 99. The Paladin and the Manipulator had been the only classes to have their level 99 skills revealed in an interview with the developers.
The operative for the day was to look for more trials. Blanc had given up on the guild farming for a Skunking soul themselves. The soul itself was pretty terrible so it would not sell for much on the market when someone inevitably pulled it from a Soul Jar.
The guild still hadn't settled on a common name for the level 99 quests. Seal quest. Trials. Limit Quests. But they were gravitating towards Trials because that was generally was the quest was.
"Everyone assemble." Vert ordered everyone back to where Zelena was. She had already assigned orders on where to look. As everyone returned except Ram and Windy, Vert got a little impatient. "Ram, Windy. We are not here to show off to low level players."
"Tsk. Y~es." Ram was upset that her fun was cut short. Windy followed Ram without a word. Their target was a cluster of 12 zones in center Lowee, mostly designed for beginners of the game although some high level players went there to farm for Sickly Dogoo souls, which were one of the few souls dropping at more than 0.01%, 0.2% in fact, and of which 10 could be traded for a Soul Jar.
The guild split into 8 groups of 2 people each. It was a tiring and mostly boring and tedious to scan each zone by hand for hidden quests but other than the Knight Seal they didn't know the location of any others. Vert had also suggested that Seals might be hidden in dungeons, especially those only accessible by certain classes, and for the party if the class was a party leader, and that was where half the guild was going to go now.
"Dengekiko and Famitsu know about Neptune." Kei spoke privately to Mina, the two of them riding Black Panthers, a level 92 mount capable of high jumps, limited wall scaling, automated attacking and sprinting, one of the most versatile land based mounts.
Mina looked at Kei with worry and a hint of shock. "Did you tell them?"
"Dengekiko ran into her while farming for Skunkings and she and Famitsu figured out who the Dark Knight NepNep is. It collaborates my theory. I contacted my source during the break earlier-" They changed zones.
"So that is why you were locked in your room." Mina had been a little upset that Kei just shut her out like that. With Vert driving the guild, there. She suspected it might be about the absurd stacks of loot that Kei had picked up in the Sorceress Seal.
"Dengekiko actually came to me, thinking I would be the most likely to react level headed because Lastation suffered the least from Planeptune. And likely because of my professional attitude. She didn't know if she was supposed to reveal it or not since it won't achieve anything but make Neptune's life harder." Kei and Mina passed zones again, close to their target, a level 25-30 dungeon, an underground jungle.
"Well, she is right about that." Mina surprisingly clicked her tongue. "Neptune is responsible for a lot of death and suffering in Lowee and Leanbox."
"Yes, but we have to consider that Lowee and Leanbox did have their own share of war related issues. The lands near Nukemduk are still an inhospitable wasteland because of Lady Blanc." Kei reminded Mina that the war and it's consequences were not just a matter of Planeptune messing everything up.
"So what are we going to do about Neptune?" Mina valued her relationship with Kei too much to argue back. They hit the dungeon warp and entered, changing from private chat to party chat, they being the only ones in party.
"I would like to talk to her. There are so many things about her behavior and the way she ruled Planeptune that don't add up or outright make no sense. There is also the issue with Plutia suddenly taking over rule. We other nations don't know a whole lot about what happened in Planeptune during the war. And we know basically nothing about what happened to Neptune after Plutia started her reign." Kei activated a floating gadget that scanned everything in a radius of 15 meters around her for anomalies, first for Mina, then for herself. The monsters were no threat and easily dispatched by the mounts as they walked.
"If Lady Vert and Lady Blanc find out you have been secretly talking to the single person responsible for most of their suffering during the war, I imagine they will be… angry."
"They're gonna be boiling and foaming at the mouth I expect. But I really don't care. There are two sides to every story, and just like Lowee and Lastation became allies in the war, I expect that Planeptune and Lastation will become as close as Lowee and Leanbox after we leave the game. Unless someone tries to snatch Nepgear away from Uni."
"When Peashy tried, Lady Uni did manage to take a great leap."
"I wouldn't call that a great leap. It was so incredibly overdue that they finally admitted to each other how they felt." Kei shrugged, exhaling slowly, impressed by how timid her Lady Uni could be when it came to Nepgear. "I'm pretty impressed Uni stuck with it and kept chasing after Nepgear all this time though."
"It's quite different from Blanc and Vert." Mina dropped the formalities now. Kei's attitude rubbed off on her a little. "They became lovers as a matter of circumstance. I imagine the war would have escalated much further if they had not."
"Pretty sure if Blanc had executed Vert, we would all be dead by now, including everyone from Lowee. That would be such a waste of a perfectly very attractive oracle." Kei smiled as she said so and finished her part of the zone. "Nothing here. Anything on your side?"
"Nothing. This is much faster than examining every nook and cranny ourselves."
"It's also a lot more expensive. One of these toys comes at 150,000 credits. They're originally designed to detect traps and hazards but I tested it with the Sorceress seal and it detects those too."
"Speaking of Lady Ram. Don't you think she is getting a little too close to Lady Windy?" The formalities returned because the topic changed.
"They're of the same mind. I mean, Ram is taller than Nepgear now and looks a little older too. It's probably hard for her and Rom to stick together like they used to." Kei didn't pay too much attention to those four because she was mostly occupied with running the guild's finances. It was twice as hard as managing a company, she estimated.
Mina smiled. "Their bond is stronger than that. They still rely on each other and I think Windy is simply someone Ram can connect to on a level that she couldn't with Rom. A mind of pranks."
"Don't remind me. I expected Chika to take their heads off when she found her entire room filled to the top with Jallopies." Kei grumbled. "I had to get a looting automating to free up the room."
"Jallopies?" Mina couldn't quite place it at first but then it came to her. "The thing the basic Dogoo drops and sells for nearly nothing?"
"You can craft a special headgear with 10,000 of them. So low level players hoard them and sell them in large amounts for what is pretty little for us high level players but quite a lot of the low levels." Headgears were often just decorative but this one in specific was the only headgear in the game for non-soldier classes that gave a vitality attribute bonus.
"How many were in the room?" Mina was a little taken aback by the effort it must have taken to do that.
"Over 2,000. It took three hours and two automatons to empty the room. Let's scan the next zone." The first level had been mostly clean and was still somewhat bright but the second was already pretty dark and full of cliffs and pitfalls.
Using the gadgets again, Kei was glad she had bought the parts in bulk. And she was even more glad she was in charge of finances.
"That does remind me..." Mina recalled something. "Windy used a Magic Mirror and pretended to be Vert a few days ago. It was so confusing for everyone involved."
"I must have missed that. How do Magic Mirror's work again?"
"They're cheap consumables that let you copy the physical appearance of the target if you know their name, level and if they are in civil mode. They were in the game originally and you could still see the player's real name so it was just a joke item." Mina had her mount jump over a pit and ran right into a dart trap that poisoned her.
"I can see how it is problematic now." Kei already saw multiple applications for impersonation and other pranks or even outright crimes. "I'm surprised I haven't seen them on the market."
"They're only dealt with on the open market." Mina was surprised she knew something about the market that Kei didn't. "They only work for 5 minutes at a time but getting a lot of them is not actually that difficult. Guilds have been hoarding them to disguise who their guild leader really is."
"We don't need to rely on cheap tricks like that." Kei felt very confident about Celestia's ability to hold back any enemy guild. Makers was interested in their own territory and The Black Lands had been stagnating a little, mostly focusing on creating money and selling questionable services.
"What surprised me was when I saw Lady Ram copy Lady Rom's appearance and then use a Cancer's Scissors to re-create her old hairstyle." Mina smiled. "I suppose she felt nostalgic about the time she was a Lowee candidate."
I saw that too. They were looking like they were definitely up to no good and they locked themselves in their room. I think you shouldn't worry about Ram and Windy getting close with each other, Mina. There's already someone Ram is close with. Kei thought to herself. As overprotective of the twins as Mina was, she didn't want to tell her that the girls were almost certainly exploring some adult concepts on their own.
"I have to say, this would be much easier if this was simply still a game." Mina was very bored. Casting her spells to kill the monsters was largely irrelevant since the exp was non-existent for taxing purposes, the loot was terrible for money purposes and the souls were largely worthless for equipment purposes.
"For a while, the Sorceress and Machinist Unions were trying to re-create something like a screenshot gadget but they didn't manage to in the end. Even if that had happened, it would take an enormous amount of money and then space to organize all of that. And creating some sort of internet within the game servers isn't possible without full network access."
"Did you talk to Chika about that?" Mina wondered how Kei knew about it.
"In-between her being glued to Zelena. I guess not everyone can respect their partner's privacy. I like that about you Mina."
I better not tell her I wanted to burn down her door to see what she was doing earlier. Mina simply laughed nervously. "But they really are close. I can't say I remember the time when Zelena first ruled, but Chika seems to be even more fond of her than she ever was of Vert."
"Can you blame her? Vert probably just stonewalled her all the time because she wasn't interested in being lovers. Which makes it all the more upsetting for Chika that the minute Vert gets caught by Lowee, the nation she is the most at odds with, she falls in love, for Blanc of all people."
"What do you mean with of all people?" Mina was protective of not only the twins but also the nation at large.
"Blanc. The girl Vert always harassed about her back then lacking breast size. Not to mention the first motion technology conflict that Lowee walked away with as a victor while Leanbox nearly abandoned theirs." As Kei brought those things up, she realized a few things she wanted to ask Mina about. "For the whole time those two got closer and closer and scarce information trickled into our network, I couldn't make head or tails of how that had worked out. Just how did either of them charm the other?"
"A really long story." Mina meant it quite literally.
"I can imagine." Kei paused. "What is up with Blanc's breasts anyway? Was that her deal in the other dimension?"
Mina paused before she answered as well. It was a touchy topic. "Yes. But it's best to just keep acting like it's perfectly normal. I am going to need a century or two to get used to it though."
"It not even all that weird. She's not walking around with two pumpkins like Yellow Heart does." Kei remembered Yellow Heart's goddess form from when they activated Horizon. "They look actually like sisters, a little bit, like that."
"It is still weird for me." Mina had served the flat-chested Blanc for so long and always taken care to hide her own breasts under her jacket as well as she could. That Lowee was generally a land of average to large busts only made it more painful for Blanc all the more.
"If Blanc's boobs were her deal, did Vert actually managed to talk those other dimension people into creating sisters for her?" Kei had wondered about that for a while. Celestia had created some absurd story about them having been born out of the faith in collaboration technology that didn't actually exist.
"Vert has told me that they were originally aspects of her own soul. Windy was the aspect of her that wanted to be wild, without having to uphold the image of the caring great sister, the adult. Natal was the aspect of the little girl she sometimes wanted to be to be spoiled herself." Mina left out a few embarrassing details that Vert had let slip under the influence of a few drinks. "Their personalities seem to be orientated on Lowee's candidates. Windy is rambunctious, like her Leanbox counterpart. Natal is quiet and composed, like Rom, her Lowee counterpart. I believe because they were not naturally born that they were given highly similar personalities to the missing candidate they connected with." Mina thought about how to put it best into simple terms. "Windy was born in Lowee and at the time, Rom was the only candidate there, missing her twin, so Windy was given a personality that could replace the lost candidate. The same took place in Leanbox with Ram and Natal.
"You thought about this much more than I ever would have." Kei liked Mina's dedicated personality trait. It meant she could really trust her, even with complicated work.
"I am Lowee's oracle." Mina smiled and the two oracles met up again. "It is going to be tiresome to care for two goddesses, who are in love at that, at the same time. Luckily I have my trustworthy aide."
"Speaking of which, you spent an awful amount of time with her when we were all brainwashed." Kei pouted a little and looked upset.
"Because Blanc and Vert wouldn't do any work. You know full well that I would spend all my time with you if I didn't have my job."
"And I would never ask you to compromise on your work or quit it because I know it is as important to you as mine is to me." Kei understood Mina's priorities and dedication. She just wished things would be a little easier between them.
"Well..." Mina put her fingers together like a roof and blushed. "I might just pick up the important work and crash at your place if you promise not to peek at my stuff."
"I promise not to peek at any documents. Your stuff is going to be totally in danger however." Kei replied with a big shit eating grin and then blushed herself. She was trying to be assertive but it was still embarrassing as heck.
"That I can live with." Mina smiled wide, no less blushing than before. "Next zone?"
"Vert only ordered us to scan the first two because the monsters jump from level 30 to level 75 down there. And then another time to level 80 plus a boss." Kei remembered the general specifics of most dungeons by now. "But I suppose since we saved so much time, we could get lost on the way back and have to ask for the way in that Leanbox restaurant that serves that seafood people have been talking about."
"I am quite terrible with directions." Mina beamed.
=== OVERHEAT ===
After meeting back up at the mansion at roughly 4 in the afternoon, Vert ordered everyone to go and spend time however they liked for a few hours. Relaxing was important as well and so was the freedom to just play as one wanted.
Nobody had found anything of value and Vert just wanted to take a nap before going over plans for the next few days later that evening.
Zelena and Chika went out to eat, Plutia went to sleep as she usually did, Nepgear and Uni had received a recommendation on a particularly good pizza place from Chika and went there. Kei and Mina met up with Dengekiko and Famitsu in Tal Lesof, one of the biggest cities in Lastation territory, under the guise of wanting to check on their various unions and hunt for some items.
Peashy, Windy and Ram set out together to terrorize a high level PVP area. Meanwhile, Rom and Natal spend their time at the large fountain of Torcraft, sitting there, Rom drawing the scenery, and her drawing skill was far, far higher than in real life, while Natal observed people.
They were both the quiet type but alone together, they talked more than people would have expected them to. "Did you like it?" Natal asked while focused on the movements and facial expressions of a group of people at a table of an ice cafe nearby.
"It was a bit intimidating." Rom continued to draw the slowly setting sun. I hope I can draw this good when we all go home. "But we had much scarier stuff happen before."
"During the war?" Natal spoke almost less than Rom did but when she said something she generally picked her words well.
"Yeah. Everyone was being a really big meanie and scary things kept happening to everyone." Rom had improved her language a lot since she started playing the game. When she was alone with Ram or Natal, she didn't pull her words as much anymore either.
"You're strong. I'm glad I wasn't born then." Natal took out her own drawing pen, a simple unbreakable pencil that never ran out or had to be sharpened she bought for 15,000 credits, and started sketching a particularly uniquely dressed girl with long black twin tails. She was followed around by a tiny girl that floated on a book, which really caught Natal's attention.
"I think you're strong too. You woke up in a game and you weren't afraid at all. That is super brave." Rom looked up repeatedly to get a few details right and then she looked at Natal. "It was a super idea to use a Magic Mirror."
"You always keep me company, so I wanted to do something for you." Natal felt a lot more mature to Rom than Ram or Windy were. Her choice of words, too, felt like that. It did remind Rom of Vert a bit.
"I got a bit scared halfway through so Ram stopped and we just cuddled." Rom blushed a little and lowered her voice. She knew nobody could hear her before they were in party chat but still. "And then the mirror went poof."
Natal managed to smile. "Cuddling with an adult? What is that like?"
"Ram isn't an adult." Rom chuckled. "You're more of an adult!"
Natal looked down at her chest and then up. "I'm the only one from Leanbox in Celestia who is small and flat."
"It's not that important to be tall! Or have breasts!" Rom nodded four times as she said that, feeling a little bit dizzy afterward. "But… Ram did feel super soft after she turned back."
"Aren't you worried Windy might take Ram away from you?"
Nope!" Rom just smiled wide. "Ram and I have been together for so, so, so, so long, even if we don't play together much anymore, we're still closer than anyone else." Rom glanced at Natal's sketch. "Are you drawing a fairy?"
"It's just a really weird player." Natal looked at Rom. "You're really not worried about Windy?"
"Hm, how do I say this… it doesn't feel like Windy wants Ram like that at all." Rom blushed a little as she said wants because Natal knew exactly what she meant.
"Now that you say that..." Natal thought about it for nearly a minute. That was her analyzing their behavior and how they acted toward each other. Natal might have looked like a small girl that was even younger than Rom but she was still a Leanbox girl and with that came certain mental qualities. "You're right."
"You really love watching people." Rom thought that Natal had one of the weirdest hobbies. Not quite as weird as Blanc writing her terrible adult books, not that kind of adult, but still really weird.
"Can I watch you tomorrow? I haven't sketched anyone my own age." Natal smiled wide.
"Sure!" Rom replied happily.
"Oh, and I was impressed you knew what an infidel is earlier." Natal nodded with the face of someone that gave tutelage.
"Hehe, I've been studying! Mina has been teaching me when she has time." I better not tell her that I never really paid attention when Mina was teaching us before. Yup.
"You'll make a great Lowee goddess one day." Natal chuckled. "Although it'll be hard to… be inaugurated." Natal had to search for the world herself. "There are two big sisters in your way."
"I'm fine with just being a candidate. Once Mina taught me a lot, I can help her out." Rom had thought long and hard about it. As much as Mina was strict on them, she realized during the war just how much Mina and Blanc cared for her and Ram.
"You're so nice." Natal smiled more and looked back at her sketch, the two spending a few minutes in silence, before Natal couldn't help but be curious. "Was Ram really that soft?"
Rom blushed intensely and didn't answer.
"Maybe I'll use a Mirror on Windy and find out..."
=== OVERHEAT ===
"So we're in agreement?" Kei put down her glass of Iris Lynch and looked at the dark night sky. The sun had settled during their conversation and many glasses had been emptied.
"I would not bother with this on my own but if you think it is the right thing to do, I will be there." Mina held her glass of Emerald Sunset and took another sip. She was really starting to feel the alcohol buzz a little in her head.
Dengekiko didn't reply right away, poking around in the leftovers of her spaghetti carbonara extra premium deluxe gigantis. Which she had demolished down to really just tiny leftovers of two or three forks full. "It's still hard to swallow that her guild simply banned her because they found out I met her." Even knowing everything Neptune had done, Dengekiko felt somewhat bad over it.
"Most guilds would have done a lot worse if they knew who she was and who she met." Famitsu tried to cheer up her colleague and finished the last bits of her third serving of buckets of shrimp.
"You two sure eat..." Kei had stared at Dengekiko in disbelief. Just where does all that food go? I know we don't gain weight in the game, but our capacity for food is just about that of our real selves. How in the world does she stay that thin when eating like that?
"When you never know when the next scoop comes in, you need to eat when you can." Famitsu smiled. "I used to sleep under my desk in crunch time."
"I think everyone at our level in the industry has done that at some point. Most people probably nowhere as much as you and I though." Dengekiko felt a hint of pity in the gazes of the oracles. "But you as oracles know long work nights and being buried in papers, right?"
Mina and Kei exchanged exhausted, tired and knowing looks before they nodded to the journalists. "As much as Lady Uni does her best, the amount of work a war generates is just too much for any single person."
"Lady Blanc was never the type to not work but she is also not the type to work a lot. And Lady Vert… I have yet to see her work ethnic but Chika told me as much that she lets it pile up a lot." Mina was really glad she had Financier to help her out.
"So we all agree on the following. We will track Neptune down and ask her to sit down with us and tell us her story. We won't publicize the story. We will keep the meeting a secret. We will discuss what she had to say after we heard her out, us four. We will not take personal action for or against Neptune in any way." Kei listed it up. "I usually would have everyone sign a contract that would exclude unreasonable high fines and punishments for breaking it but I assume that will not be necessary just this one time." I can't wait to get back and spend some time alone with Mina. Being a professional all day is not as easy as it used to be. And definitely not as fun.
The other three nodded and answered with a simple agreed to honor the contract. "We are done here then." Kei gave Dengekiko and Famitsu a long look. "It was right of you to come to me. The others would not have had the composure to discuss this at length without letting their feelings get in the way."
Famitsu was about to thank Kei when she got mail. Pulling up her menu, Famitsu watched Kei pull over the waitress to pay. "I might be misunderstanding this but… Kei, Mina. Someone at the Mindflayer Union I pay to give me information just described in their mail: A tiny girl that rode on a book. I've never seen something like this before. She wore purple clothes, had blond hair and was accompanied by a high level Manipulator. The Manipulator is irrelevant but this does sound strangely like-"
"Histoire!" Mina and Kei said in one breath.
"Planeptune's Oracle?" Dengekiko smiled at the surprise on Mina's and Kei's face. "We journalists know many things."
"So she is here after all." Kei glanced at Mina. "It is worth finding her to ask her if she knows what Noire is doing and when we will be leaving this game." It was fun to play 4GO2 as themselves but Kei was worried about the state of Celestia.
"I'll mail my contact back to see if they can track her down." Famitsu quickly switched to message speech, which was the primary form of writing mail so to speak, literally.
"Finding Histoire will take priority over Neptune. She is the all-knowing record. She should know what happened with Horizon and what the outside is like." Kei quickly paid their tab, without leaving party chat. What surprised Kei was how many people simply openly discussed both private and inconsequential things. Towns were always buzzing, even at night, which enriched the atmosphere but Kei just didn't really understand why people didn't abuse the party chat function more.
"Don't get mad at me when it takes a while." Famitsu raised her hands in defense. "She might be a little girl floating on a book but many people are just gonna think she is a rare pet."
Histoire would be so angry if someone mistook her for a pet Mina figured.
"We are not dependent on your contact to find her. We can use all of Celestia's connections and money to track her down. Please open a warp home. We have a floating little girl to find." Kei, in her thirst for information, was very motivated to track down that fourth oracle. The one that had found the human Kei Jinguji and made her into Lastation's Oracle in the first place.
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